In this History Extra Podcast, Marlene Daut, Professor of French & African Diaspora Studies @ Yale University talks about her book, The first & last King of Haiti, The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe.

Henry Chistophe (1767-1820) was likely born to a slave woman in the then British colony of Grenada. At the age of only 12 he was separated from his mother and fought in the American Revolution in the Battle of Savannah. By then Grenada had been captured for France.

Christophe rose to power in the Haitian revolutionary military beginning with the slave uprising of 1791. After Haiti declared independence on 1 January 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines became emperor.

When Dessalines was assassinated in 1806, the country split into 2 states, with Christophe declaring himself king of Haiti in the north in 1811.

After Christophe’s death in 1820, the country was reunified.